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soy milk, so safe?

Banana happily drank breast milk for most of her first year, but when time came for the next stage, I decided on soy milk instead of cow milk. I’ve written before about the benefits of soy: no cholesterol, less sugar, more fiber, etc.

A few weeks ago, a parent-friend of mine asked if I’d heard about the effects of soy’s phytoestrogen. I decided to read up on it, here’s what I found out.

Mothering Magazine featured an article on the “The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food,” in 2004. It highlights several concerns, including:
• In animal studies, protease inhibitors interfered with protein digestion and caused malnutrition, poor growth, digestive distress, and pancreatitis.
• Phytates blocked mineral absorption, causing zinc, iron, and calcium deficiencies.
• Lectins and saponins caused leaky gut and other gastrointestinal and immune problems.
• Oxalates-surprisingly high in soy-may cause problems for people prone to kidney stones and women suffering from vulvodynia, a painful condition marked by burning, stinging, and itching of the external genitalia.
• Estrogen could affect the thyroid and reduce fertility.

Check out the article for footnotes. The author mentions that the processing that soybeans go through can reduce these negative impacts. The article compares soy to DES (a drug given to women in the 40s and 50s to prevent miscarriage), which I think is an unseemly link and irresponsible reporting. In addition, there are several inaccuracies in tofu measurements. Read through the letters, where researchers weighed in with some corrections and contradictory info.
However much this article overhypes the negatives, it does raise questions.

So, what to do? There are health benefits and negatives. The article mentioned that Japanese people, who’ve eaten soy for millennia, only eat 10-20 grams per day. I decided to calculate how much I was giving Banana in a typical day:
• 28 grams Soy Milk
• 7 grams soy yogurt
• 5 grams tofu burger/chik’n patty/soy brat
• Additional soy additives to a slew of products that I don’t even know about.

That was a reality check! She’s healthy as a pony, so I’m not terribly worried about that the soy is affecting her now, but to keep the Precautionary Principle in mind, perhaps cutting back was in order. Too much of a good thing can have adverse affects. Like too many vitamins. Or putting peanuts in everything, which I’m sure is what is leading to so many food allergies. Perhaps having soy be omnipresent in our diet isn’t a good thing either.

Our routine now is to mix the milk ½ soymilk and ½ cow milk. I fill a jug in the morning and pour from that throughout the day. I switched to regular milk yogurt. I am sticking with the Gardenburgers (read why I love them) and chik’n patties. They are so convenient, she likes them (at 20 months, she’s growing pickier every week), and they do have health benefits.